The present invention generally relates to an apparatus and a method for forming proteinaceous batter into shaped products without using a casing or the like. More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus and method for forming casingless shaped products, such as casingless sausage and the like. An elongated ribbon or flow of proteinaceous batter material having a proteinaceous skin thereon is formed, supported and severed into a plurality of blanks having unfinished ends. After the unfinished ends are shaped as desired, the resulting shaped blanks or links are raised to a temperature at which the proteinaceous batter thereof is congealed. Further heating substantially fully cooks the shaped blanks to provide cooked link products.
Various devices are known for shaping batter materials such as sausage batter, other food product batters and the like, and stuffing the batter into a casing, which casing can complete the shaping of the batter as desirable while maintaining the desired shape during further processing. Often, the further processing includes cooking or other procedure which modifies the consistency of the batter such that it will substantially maintain its desired shaped. At least in the case of wieners and other sausage products, each casing is subsequently removed during processing so that the product purchased by the consumer is a so-called casingless product, even though a casing had been used during processing. Such casing removal requires a specially designed apparatus, such as the one illustrate in Koher U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,707.
Various devices have been proposed for forming and processing sausages and the like without using casings. One suggested approach has been to form and cook a food batter within an elongated tube which has end-shaping plugs periodically spaced therewithin, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,113,890. This requires a continuous inserting of the batter and plugs into the tube and a removal of the plugs and cooked batter out of the tube. Another patent, Rogers U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,093, proposes making food products such as skinless sausages through the use of a series of plugs that engage a tube within which the batter is cooked.
Another suggested approach is to use a plurality of hollow molding tubes that are conveyed sequentially through an endless path. Geissbuhler U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,356 proposes the use of a plurality of molds having an open end such that sausage material will expand out of the tube and, this patent suggests, be formed into rounded sausage ends when each molding tube is conveyed through a heating zone, which is shown as a hot water bath.
In another proposal, sausages are shaped within fully enclosed molds, each having a permeable wall through which an edible acid is introduced. Treharne U.S. Pats. No. 4,280,803 and No. 4,404,229, incorporated by reference hereinto, show such a system wherein the edible acid is said to react with protein in a meat or meat-like material within the molds to form a cohesive surface.
Suggestions in the art as are exemplified by these patents call for shaping of a batter-originating product within a tube or mold and thereafter removing the finally shaped product from the mold, and typically from a plurality of mold cavities or a mold cavity having a plurality of molding locations. Proposals of this general category tend to require complicated apparatus features, often including a complex molding structure having various moving parts and/or multiple components, which at times must be accurately indexed and/or aligned with respect to each other.
By proceeding in accordance with the present invention, batter such as sausage batter and the like is transformed into a shaped product such as a sausage or the like without having to form that product within a casing and subsequently remove and discard the casing. An apparatus is provided wherein the batter is stuffed into a shaped cavity having treating means to initiate formation of a proteinaceous skin, which skin holds the batter together and imparts to it a preliminary shape which approximates the desired final shape of the product. This preliminarily shaped product is removed from the molding assembly as an elongated flow of treated proteinaceous batter material. Additional set-up time for proteinaceous skin formation is typically imparted by receiving the elongated flow or ribbon of treated proteinaceous batter material onto a moving support member. The elongated flow is severed into blanks, which are selected lengths of the preliminarily shaped products. In an illustrated embodiment, these blanks are subjected to further shaping to impart a generally rounded or dome-like configuration to each end of each blank by the operation of an end forming assembly, which is preferably one that subjects the ends to vacuum molding conditions. Thereafter, each blank is cooked and packaged, preferably while utilizing a multi-staged cooking arrangement that includes raising the shaped blanks to a temperature at which congealing takes place, followed by substantially fully cooking the previously heated and congealed blanks to a desired cooking temperature.
It is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved apparatus and method for transforming batter into shaped products without utilizing casings or the like.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved apparatus and method that includes forming at least a portion of a batter-originating product with an assembly which does not include a product-conforming mold cavity.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved apparatus and method for making casingless food products that can be cooked and then packaged.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved apparatus and method for forming casingless products that can be packaged and then aseptically cooked within the package.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved sausage-making apparatus which is of an especially simplified construction.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a sausage-making apparatus which reduces the cost of utilities when compared with conventional casing-utilizing systems.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for making sausages and the like that does not require any casing removal devices.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved apparatus and method for making casingless sausages which emulate the appearance of sausages made within casings.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved apparatus and method incorporating cooking arrangements that conserve energy and provide a casingless product having a texture, consistency and appearance which are substantially the same as those of sausages formed and cooked within casings.
Another object of this invention is to provide a dwell conveyor for receiving and transporting an elongated sausage batter extrusion after treatment of same and prior to severance of same into generally link-sized blanks.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved apparatus and method incorporating vacuum molding techniques for imparting dome-shaped ends that have the appearance of sausage ends formed within casings.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved apparatus and process wherein packaging arrangements contribute to the formation of casingless sausage links.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be clearly understood through a consideration of the following detailed description.